Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light

Bookish bite. Sharp harmonies.

Songs about saints, scientists, and stubborn women.

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light are a Boston-based string band crafting songs that live at the intersection of folk tradition, feminist storytelling, and poetic precision. At the center is Sumner’s songwriting—rooted in history, myth, and personal reckoning—delivered with close harmonies, upright bass, acoustic guitar, and fiddle.

The trio features Kat Wallace on fiddle and vocals and Mike Siegel on upright bass and vocals, whose playing brings both tension and tenderness to the sound. Together, they create music that is spare and intimate—sometimes eerie, sometimes sweet, always intentional. They call it Femericana: sharp-edged Americana with a splash of feminine rage.

Rachel Sumner's work has struck a deep chord with listeners across the country. Her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison)," a haunting tribute to the women harmed by early industrial labor, has been streamed more than 300,000 times and embraced far beyond the folk world. It’s been sung in audition rooms, taught in classrooms, carried into protests, and even tattooed on arms. It’s the kind of song people hold onto.

Sumner has performed at the Library of Congress, where five of her original songs are now archived, and was a 2024 winner of the Kerrville New Folk competition. Alongside Traveling Light, she has toured coast to coast, bringing their spellbinding live show to listening rooms, libraries, farms, and festivals, including Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Earl Scruggs Festival, IBMA, and beloved folk rooms like Caffè Lena and Club Passim.

Their latest release, The Traveling Light Sessions, reimagines Sumner’s studio album Heartless Things, recorded live around a single microphone—no overdubs, no polish. Just the way they play it.

SAMPLE SONG

This is music for listeners who love language, history, and harmony, and who believe songs can still carry weight.

Can't make it to the show in person? Stream this show live at Caffè Lena TV. Enjoy two weeks of access with your live stream ticket.

Note: Caffe Lena does not permit ticket reselling above face value. Tickets purchased for the purpose of resale may be canceled without notice, and refunds for such purchases will not be granted.